How important is artistic licence?

[fooboo]

How important is artistic licence for the sake of entertainment? (in the context of films that portray real events)

Should film makers be concious of the real of a story and try to be as accurate as possible or is the entertainment (the point of making the film) allow film makers free range in the name of entertainment?



I have seen some very entertaining films that are based loosely on a real story such as the Mutiny on the Bounty where Bligh is an ogre and Chrisitian the hero, and understood it was for entertainments sake and I personally wouldn't get my history solely from a film but I think there is increasingly a reliance on film and the internet (which is largely unmonitored where accuracy is concerned) for historical information.



If the papers are to believed the levels of education are dropping at alarming rates...unless they are not in the next issue they print...then they are again the week after...lol

But history has always been lower in priority for many as far as I can tell.



What are your views on the responsibility of a film maker?

[Dave Rattigan]

I think the only responsibility of the filmmaker is to be honest about what kind of film they are making. Take as much liberty as you like with the historical facts - in the name of art, creativity, entertainment - as long as you are clear that you're presenting a fictionalization.

[Marky B]

I think a blatant fictionalisation of a true event is out of order (unless it is a film like Z,which claims to be fiction,although based on real events),but sometimes keeping a word by word account of history (like a documentary) might result in a dull film. Zulu was not a true depiction of the battle of Rorke's Drift,for example,but nonethless respect for the film is still high.

Ta Ta

Marky B

[GRAEME]

I agree with Dave. If the filmaker is clear that it is fictionalised then they can do what they like in the name of art/entertainment. It is then up to the audience whether they like it or not.



There are obviously issues of taste and decency and repect - especially where living people are concerned - we have touched on this in the "Celtic" thread with The Bridge on the River Kwai.



I personally believe in a serious artist's right to be offensive - David Lean and his writers were just such artists. However, sloppy lazy misuse of actual events with no artistic justification does rankle.



I may hate the way a film has twisted a piece of history I care about but that doesn't mean the maker didn't have the right to do so.



If Speilberg had wanted to make a proNazi apologia out of Schindler's List - he was at liberty to do so. I wouldn't have gone to see it and it would have been as deplorable as someone telling racist jokes in my local. He would have had to put up with howls of indignation - critical backlash is allowed too. It's called free speech.



So the short answer is that a filmaker has no more duty to the past than any of us do. To play fair they should indicate when they have played fast and loose with the facts - but in practice most do not. Films are not there to pick up the slack in our education system however.



By the way, writers have ALWAYS messed around with actual events in order to tell stories - lies, inventions, half-truths are the stuff of legends. Why should filmakers have less artistic freedom than a poet like Homer or a playwright like Shakespeare?

[fooboo]

I must admit when it comes to comedy I do rather like offensive comedians I don't mean racially abusive but those who don't mind making their audience a little uncomfortable before reigning them back in and I'm not put off by films that are shocking or controversial.



I suppose the artistic justification is the key. I haven't yet seen "300" but from the clips I have seen, and the second hand info of friends who have seen it, it is an enjoyable but by no means accurate. That hasn't put me off wanting to see it.



I do get wound up by inaccuracy in films, not just historical. My wife despairs everytime we watch a film in which they use what I call "film computers" where the fonts are huge and you are in a chat room the moment you open up a laptop which seems to have been on all along...I can't help myself tutting :P but it would be boring if we had to wait with the character while their pc booted up.

[batman]

name='GRAEME']If the filmaker is clear that it is fictionalised then they can do what they like in the name of art/entertainment. It is then up to the audience whether they like it or not ..... a filmaker has no more duty to the past than any of us do. To play fair they should indicate when they have played fast and loose with the facts - but in practice most do not. Films are not there to pick up the slack in our education system however.

I couldn't have put it better myself.



Bats.

[Steve Crook]

name='Dave Rattigan']I think the only responsibility of the filmmaker is to be honest about what kind of film they are making. Take as much liberty as you like with the historical facts - in the name of art, creativity, entertainment - as long as you are clear that you're presenting a fictionalization.

Exactly. What I most object to is when they claim that it's based on a true story - but it obviously isn't, apart from maybe using characters with the same names as those involved in the original events.



The Password is Courage (1962) is a case in point. One that I've expounded upon (ranted about) here in the past.



Steve

[Steve Crook]

name='GRAEME']If the filmaker is clear that it is fictionalised then they can do what they like in the name of art/entertainment. It is then up to the audience whether they like it or not.



...



So the short answer is that a filmaker has no more duty to the past than any of us do. To play fair they should indicate when they have played fast and loose with the facts - but in practice most do not. Films are not there to pick up the slack in our education system however.

Very true. But they should remember that, like it or not, most people's view of historical events is determined by the films they have seen about those events.



When asked about the Kennedy Assassination, many people will cite sequences from the Oliver Stone film.



Steve

[Moor Larkin]

How adaptable is the famous disclaimer at the end of the credits?



The standard form is that "this film is entirely made up and anyone who thinks it's about them is wrong". Quite often this has been an outright lie hasn't it?



Then there is the one that says "Based on a true story", then it makes the whole thing up.............



There was an interesting one this afternoon, on TV, in some ITC Lew Grade epic with lots of stars on a boat. It said at the end that it was a true story but some names and many of the experiences had been changed to protect the identity of the people involved. That seemed a nice way of saying we made it up but this sort of thing really did happen.



To save droning on about Braveheart again.......... there was a bit of a fuss on the last Titanic because the English officer shot one of the passengers in a blue funk (was it Lightoller? I think it was) His descendants were a bit aggrieved I believe; a bit like the Welsh guy Hook's family was, in Zulu, because their illustrious teetotal ancestor became an alcoholic in the film.........



A lot of this predicament seems to stem from the legal niceties. If the film-maker makes it about real people but pretends it isn't he's in trouble. If he admits it's about something that was real, he then gets in bother if he doesn't make a dead straight documentary. It can all be a bit self-defeating.



I recall seeing 'Objective Burma!', which I thought was quite good but then read it was banned in Britain because Hollywood didn't make it with British soldiers. It was a similar controversy to the film about the Enigma code being captured by the Americans, that was released recently.

[dremble wedge]

It's something Ken Russell used to get slated for with regard to his films on composers.



I don't think he was bothered by accusations of factual inaccuracies, I know I'm not...

[rskershaw]

I think most audiences either turn a blind eye or are ignorant the the historical facts anyway. When the cold war ended, Hollywood was short of baddies so started to villanise us lot (which they had done before the Cold War), or rewrote history so that British victories became American (eg U-571). Either that or they couldn't be bothered representing history anyway. ie The Normandy landings in Saving Private Ryan consist only of G.I.'s.

I saw a bit of Yanks on TV today while is was pottering about. What is it now, 30 years old? But it is from a completely diifferent era. I doubt finances would be put up for such a film now.

[Steve Crook]

name='Moor Larkin']I recall seeing 'Objective Burma!', which I thought was quite good but then read it was banned in Britain because Hollywood didn't make it with British soldiers. It was a similar controversy to the film about the Enigma code being captured by the Americans, that was released recently.

It wasn't banned, it was given a certificate. It was pulled from release and most cinemas decided not to show it after heated protest from British veterans groups and the military establishment. As the Burma campaign was a predominantly British and Australian operation, the picture was taken as a national insult and highlighted the resentment that many felt was another example of Americans believing they won the war singlehandedly.



Incidentally, writer Lester Cole, who co-wrote the somewhat overly patriotic flag-waving script, would be branded an "Un-American" Communist, becoming one of the Hollywood Ten just a few years later.

[Steve Crook]

name='Moor Larkin']How adaptable is the famous disclaimer at the end of the credits?



The standard form is that "this film is entirely made up and anyone who thinks it's about them is wrong". Quite often this has been an outright lie hasn't it?



Then there is the one that says "Based on a true story", then it makes the whole thing up.............

The standard disclaimer like "any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental" is purely a legal cop out and is often in very small print. It was introduced after one of the big studios got heavily sued after doing a biographical movie about someone, suggesting that they were a bit naughty



But they can include that dislaimer yet still say in big letters at the beginning that "This is based on a true story" and, as you say, make it all up



Steve

[fooboo]

It's like Monty Pythons "Bocialists"...of course they weren't socialists...lol

[silverwhistle]

I don't think it's right – morally – to use the names of real people and then change them beyond recognition, while claiming the film (or novel – because this started in historical fiction long before the invention of cinema) is "the true story" or "a history lesson". I can accept some elisions and omissions (of minor supporting characters or minor events) for the sake of clarity, but not wholesale distortions. If you want to make it all up, why not change the names as well, and tell a completely fictional story, in a fictional country or even a fictional universe? Film and novels are good at complete fiction: they don't have to tie things to real-life stories. Indeed, I think it's better when they don't.



As Steve said, "like it or not, most people's view of historical events is determined by the films they have seen about those events", and having worked in adult education, I've sometimes had to deal with the results. (I also took part in a TV documentary, Hollywood and History, for Tonight with Trevor MacDonald in 2000).



It's infuriating when people are utterly convinced that something they saw in a film or read in a novel is the 'real' version. But one can see why they assume it: after all, film-makers have huge budgets, and their publicity often includes exaggerated boasts about the amount of time and effort that's gone into research. Sadly, it can even bleed through into the work of non-fiction writers, because they have formed early impressions based on fiction they read or films they saw when young – impressions that sometimes endure, despite later study.



Gratuitous historical inaccuracy can hurt the reputations of real people, and reputations are all the dead have left. In many societies, to ruin someone's name was the worst thing you could do to them. What's more, the real stories, so far as we can ascertain, are usually far more exciting than the bundles of clichés that tend to get put on screen or on the pages of novels.



Here's a very good article on historical fiction, which I think is equally applicable to film:

Anne Scott MacLeod, Writing Backward: Modern Models in Historical Fiction.

[penfold]

name='silverwhistle']Gratuitous historical inaccuracy can hurt the reputations of real people, and reputations are all the dead have left. In many societies, to ruin someone's name was the worst thing you could do to them. What's more, the real stories, so far as we can ascertain, are usually far more exciting than the bundles of clichés that tend to get put on screen or on the pages of novels.

Beautifully put. If the events are so recent as to have close descendants living, then filmmakers have a sort of duty of care; either to be accurate in terms of not denigrating a good (real person's) character, or instead create a work of total fiction. That's my complaint (rehearsed elsewhere) about Kwai; the (genuinely heroic, and easily identified) prototype for Guinness' Nicholson was still alive when it was made...

[silverwhistle]

name='penfold']Beautifully put. If the events are so recent as to have close descendants living, then filmmakers have a sort of duty of care; either to be accurate in terms of not denigrating a good (real person's) character, or instead create a work of total fiction. That's my complaint (rehearsed elsewhere) about Kwai; the (genuinely heroic, and easily identified) prototype for Guinness' Nicholson was still alive when it was made...

Even when they're not that recent, it can be very distressing to us completely unrelated historians. I was ready to throw a brick at the TV when watching a US-made mini-series about Petrine Russia. I was translating primary sources on the subject at the time, for my doctorate (which was on images of the Petrine era in Russian history painting). More recently, I corresponded briefly with a historical novelist who tried to justify as "artistic licence" his depiction of a 12C character, whose reputation in his lifetime was quite dazzling, as a murderer and sadistic pervert, given to flogging and raping his wife, and did not even look like the physical descriptions we have. He has a historical end-note in his book, stating that the events depicted were real: but not which ones. So people who read that novel will assume he's done the research and that all this kinky stuff is true. In fact, there's no evidence for it at all (I know the primary sources in Latin, French and Greek), and the man he depicts as dark, cadaverous and sinister was an attractive extrovert, and probably as blond as the rest of his family.

[silverwhistle]

name='GRAEME']By the way, writers have ALWAYS messed around with actual events in order to tell stories - lies, inventions, half-truths are the stuff of legends. Why should filmakers have less artistic freedom than a poet like Homer or a playwright like Shakespeare?

Because the notions of "history" in their times (what it was, what it was for) were rather different from those of the modern age. There's no excuse now for deliberately lying about real people.

[penfold]

name='silverwhistle']Even when they're not that recent, it can be very distressing to us completely unrelated historians. .

Unrelated, but I did send off a stinging email this morning to a WW1 Historian who completely misrepresented Chaplin's WW1 era comedies, their quality and their success...I won't claim to be a historian in the way you are, Doc, but I did take it almost personally, so I take your point.

[silverwhistle]

name='penfold']Unrelated, but I did send off a stinging email this morning to a WW1 Historian who completely misrepresented Chaplin's WW1 era comedies, their quality and their success...I won't claim to be a historian in the way you are, Doc, but I did take it almost personally, so I take your point.

Yup. I think what tends to rankle with me is that in so many cases, the gratuitous inaccuracies are done either for reasons of lurid sensationalism (sex! violence! shock! horror!) or marketing (to make characters more like modern people, "viewer/reader identification", which makes them utterly implausible in historical context).